I was excited as we followed Benny into the training room. This place was pretty big, but we'd been around for a bit and we knew the general locations of things at least. Finding the training space again was easy enough, and when we got there my friend took his place in the middle of the room and dropped his bag on the floor with a clank. "Ok, so basically I have this bag of stuff, and I'm not sure what to integrate. I don't know if or how I can de-integrate, or even what integration is like, so I'm going to try to make sure I pick the best stuff."

I got where he was coming from, but that didn't seem right to me. "The inventions won't rank up and you will. Your ability wouldn't make sense if you were stuck with H rank gear fused into you when you get to A rank. You have to be able to remove the stuff. Do you have any innate understanding of your powers? Like can you tell how many items you can integrate at a time or anything?" I doubted he could hold too many or anything of too high a rank for one, so it would help if he could feel his limits.

He nodded. "Ten. I don't know why, but honestly whoever designed this whole cultivation system seemed to be obsessed with base ten, so that's probably the only real reason. As for rank, only H ranked gear right now. My body can't integrate with anything with a higher Impact. The interfacing process just fails." Which made sense, his power had to have some kind of technopathic component, and that wouldn't be able to connect to higher ranked gear.

I gestured down to the bag. "Ok then, why don't you tell me what kind of goodies are in your magical mystery bag? Even if you can remove stuff I doubt it's fast or easy, so picking the best stuff seems like your smartest move. What exactly did you manage to make out of all the crazy materials you bought with most of our money?" Aside from the cash I burned on the Force Pine, Benny had spent literally all of our money on supplies. It was an investment of course, and a solid one, so we didn't mind, but still. I wanted to know what he'd managed to come up with.

He chuckled ruefully. "Quite a few things actually. Mostly I ended up with combat based stuff, since I focused pretty hard on Might. Still there were a few strange items that made literally no sense mixed into the lot. If you want I can start with the stuff that seems like it would be most suitable and fill you in on the random shit later? I spent a LONG time on these, so there's a pretty decent chunk of stuff to get through." He nudged the bag with his foot, nodding to the solidity of the thing, which barely moved when he shoved it.

I nodded, waiting for him to begin, and he snorted a bit at my obvious impatience. He reached down and pulled out...a weighted glove. "This one is pretty straightforward. Triples punching power. Easily the most on the nose thing I made, but also the most boring. From what I can tell I can only integrate one object in a specific spot on my body. So this would take up one of my hands, and I didn't want to commit to that for something sub par."

I poked it. "Fair. Triple punching power would work well for you though, given how Might heavy your build will be. Plus if you can replace it later giving up one hand for something like that would be pretty smart overall. Probably not the best to start with if you aren't sure about removing stuff though. What else you got?" I was pretty sure it wasn't an issue, but still, it made sense for him to pick something a bit more unique and useful as his first integration just in case.

He leaned back down and reached in again, pulling out an umbrella. "This one is more interesting I think., It attracts ranged projectiles. I know that sounds like something you don't want in your body, but if I put it on a limb and armor the thing up...well I'd rather get shot in my well defended arm than the head or chest." He handed the thing to me, and I opened it, enjoying the flash of green light over the surface because it was pretty.

He put it down and took out a coil of rope. "This one is interesting. It expands and retracts. I was thinking if integrating it into like my torso or back. I considered my limbs, but honestly center mass seems like a better plan since I can just extend it to catch things and this way it doesn't put extra pressure on my extremities."

I nodded. "I see the logic there. I feel like it'll sort of impede your control, but you'll still have limbs to throw it with, and even if you don't, that would mean the rope itself would have been ripped free to begin with. Also how the hell did you make rope? And out of what?" I kind of got the gloves, and the umbrella made sense, but making magic rope seemed time consuming and like it would require ingredients he didn't have.

He shrugged. "I pickup up some plants when I was shopping, and the work room you rented had a spinning wheel in it." I hadn't seen that, it was interesting to note though. He stared at the rope for a bit and then nodded. "I'm going to do this one first. If I end up stuck with it, my torso won't be a huge loss and it'll still be useful even much later on down the line as means of transporting myself, even if it'll get a bit...flimsy, in comparison to other artifacts I might have." He took a deep breath, looking pensive. "Ok. Well, maybe you guys should back up. I don't know how this works."

I snorted. I doubted he was going to explode into sparks and consume it in some big flashy display, but it was his power, and Jessie and I retreated further away and he walked away from his bag towards the center of the room, the two of us pressing to the walls to make sure he had a big open space. He exhaled slowly, letting himself zone out a bit as he focused entirely on the rope, and pressed it to his...belly button. I snickered a bit at that. It was a weird place, but it also made sense kind of.

There was a bright blue glow, and he began to push the rope into himself. There was only about two feet of the stuff to begin with, probably because being extendable made it pointless. He spent about two minutes feeding it in, wincing slightly but not looking like he was actually in pain, until he finally finished with a sigh. Then he just stood there, waiting. We all held our breath's expecting...something.

Finally when nothing happened he exhaled slowly. "Alright. That was...weird. But it didn't hurt, and I feel like I can undo it. " He grinned. "Now I just have to test it out." He exposed his stomach, pulling his shirt up, and his face creased with effort as a rope slowly emerged from his belly button. I wasn't sure how deep the thing went exactly but it wasn't just attached to his skin, which was good because that would have been much less useful.

He grew the thing out about six feet and then, looking up at a hoop high up above us for aerial training, he grew out a bit more and tossed the thing up through the hoop. It fell over the edge and then back down to where he was standing. He grabbed the end with both hands, and then he closed his eyes and focused. I could see the rope growing shorter, and as it retracted he had less slack until finally it started to pull him into the air.

It looked...weird. But really cool, and I was a bit jealous he had such a versatile power. Inventions could get crazy later on. When he got high enough he grabbed the hoop, pulling himself up to sit in it triumphantly with a grin. He was coated in sweat, and shaking slightly, but still, it was really impressive. He laughed at our expressions. "Ok, that was fun. Only issue is that the efficiency is WAY decreased. Which I guess makes sense, since if I could just spam overpowered artifact abilities everyone would be using this power."

I suspected he was ignoring the massive investment of materials needed, but he wasn't wrong. it was pretty much moot though. "It's fine man. When you get some more stat points it should let you handle the strain easier even with the decreased efficiency. Granted you'll probably be stuck to one trick at a time for a while, maybe two, but still, if you get up high enough in rank or mix in a few other skills I bet you can get really strong." I paused. "I wonder if you could get an Alchemist to mix you one of those potions and make cyborg a racial trait?"

His eyes widened. "That...wow that would actually be awesome. We'd probably have to go to the faerie land though. Anyway for now I want to focus on learning to use the power I do have. Which means integrating some more of this stuff to see how it works together. I think you might be right about one thing at a time right now, but maybe I can train that up so I can at least use two. Being a multi tool sounds interesting but less than overwhelming in a fight." He extended the rope again, looping it over the edge of the hoop to lower himself down.

Once he got to the ground he headed over to the bag and pulled out the glove and umbrella, integrating the two objects in about fifteen minutes. It seemed like straining his power had slowed down the process, but he still got it finished smoothly enough. He grinned once he was done, taking a minute to catch his breath. "That was interesting. Now that I have these I should try a bit of sparring with them." He raised a challenging eyebrow. "What do you think? You want to fight?"

I almost burst out laughing at that. "You want to fight ME? I'm G ranked. Don't get me wrong, I get wanting to test your powers out but like none of those artifacts were offensive except the glove. When I sparred with Callie it was just so I could let loose without accidentally killing someone. No man, you just barely hit H rank." I grinned and turned to Jessie. "No, you have another person here you can fight."

Jessie's eyes snapped to mine, widening. "Wait what? My power is plant based, it's barely combat applicable. Why would he fight me?" She looked unsettled, which was understandable, but it had occurred to me that we couldn't keep dragging Jessie around with us if she couldn't defend herself. Rank ups were great, but she was part of the team, and laziness or non combat role aside she needed to learn how to keep herself safe.

I shook my head. "No buts you two. You both have things to learn from the other. Jessie, your power is less inherently combat focused, but your stats are much higher than his. You Vitality in particular is massive for your rank, so you shouldn't get hurt, and I want to see what you can do with that wand before I make you a permanent version." I gave her a kind but firm smile and she blew out a breath, nodding. Then she headed for the middle of the room where Benny was. Time to see what the rookies could do.